Blog #417: Toy Review: Botcon 2013 Obsidian

Botcon 2013 Obsidian

If you haven’t read my full review of Botcon Toys, Merchandise, and news from Botcon and San Diego Comic Con, click here.

I really like the Machine Wars concept this year.  I’m not crazy about the inclusion of Strika and Obsidian because I really never liked them as characters and they have nothing to do with Machine Wars.  If they had to be included, I would have preferred they be Decepticons instead of Autobots.  Since the toys are both molds that I really like that doesn’t bother me too much though.

What does bother me is ridiculous coloring on some of the toys.  Let’s be honest, the reason Machine Wars was created was so that Hasbro could maintain trademarks.  Some names like Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Hoist, Hubcap, Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Starscream hadn’t been used in several years.  The toys were all reuses of existing molds (though a few had not been seen before due to the cancellation of G2).  The art was all reused and didn’t match most of the toys.  I don’t see how you can conclude that it was anything other than a bunch of random toys and art thrown together to maintain the trademarks on the names.  This being the case, it’s clear they didn’t put much thought into the color schemes.  That’s why we have toys that do not match the characters color schemes in any way.  (Even if they are supposed to be different iterations of the characters, they should still have had the correct colors.)  What Fun Publications really should have done is make the “second wave of Machine Wars toys” match the proper color schemes for the characters rather than continue to do them wrong.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Mold Used: Transformers 2010 Voyager Highbrow (Repainted with a new head.)

The Highbrow mold is one of my favorites in the last five or ten years.  I’m really glad it was used this year.  He’s got a really great head sculpt, and I was really excited for this one when the prototype came out.

Unfortunately, they changed the original prototype from the toy color scheme to the animation color scheme.  This was apparently due to fan reaction to the prototype.  He looked so much nicer in light green.  He looks an awful lot like Generations Powerdive in these colors, not exactly, but close.

It’s always been true that if you put ten Transformers fans in a room and ask them something about Transformers, you’re likely to get ten different answers.  If that’s what the majority of fans wanted, then fine.  It’s just depressing because this could have been a much better toy that I would have given an A+ to.

Grade: B

Thanks for reading!